---

Electoral Administration Bill

My Lords, we now have the confusion that I thought we were getting into; the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, suggested that we moved all these amendments together. Perhaps it would be helpful if I responded to the amendments that I have spoken to and took out the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Elder. It might be helpful to the House if I indicate stage that we are perfectly in agreement with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Elder. It moves us a long way forward, in that we now would have two identifiers on postal or proxy voting. This does not mean that I might not come back to the situation on national insurance numbers at another stage. However, for today’s purposes, there seems to me to be agreement that it is important that there should at least be identifiers of a signature and a date of birth. That is one of the stumbling blocks that we have all seen in this part of the Bill. I am happy to accept that that is the situation. If I try to push it a bit further at the next stage, that is up to me. We have moved a long way down the road with this amendment. I am glad that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Elder—and my amendment at an earlier stage—were sufficiently coherent to have been able to do that. A number of the other amendments, which I have tabled, are on national insurance registration, but I will not bother with those again today. For the others, I look forward to the Minister’s reply.